The top of the great emerging markets run will likely be very close to the levels hit on May 16, 2006. That’s the day Dreyfus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch another emerging market stock fund – to be named Dreyfus Emerging Markets Opportunity Fund.

With billions of new money flooding into emerging markets funds (after a massive three-year rally that has seen most funds in the category triple in value), Dreyfus is getting tired of sitting on the sidelines while competitors bring in all the loot.

Can you blame ‘em? Emerging market funds are about the last area where a fund company can make an honest buck. Management fees for your typical emerging market stock fund are double domestic stock funds – even the ETFs in this area have high expenses. iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (EEM) charges 0.75% a year. As this ETF recently peaked at around $14 billion in assets, Barclays Global Investors (the company behind the popular ETFs) rakes in more money from this fund than any other they run.

Let’s check in with what fund investors are doing – and as usual, consider doing something else.

Nobody hates mutual funds fees more than we do. At MAXfunds.com, we absolutely hate loads, deplore high expense ratios, and barely tolerate 12b-1 fees. So you'd think when the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled last year to continue to allow mutual fund companies to charge shareholders for selling shares of a fund (up to 2% in redemption fees) that we'd be hopping mad. But we're not. In fact, we're actually tickled pink. Redemption fees, you see, are the ones we absolutely love.

Redemption fees are charged by some funds if an investor sells a position held for less than a certain period of time. The amount of the fee and the redemption fee period varies from fund to fund, but a common redemption fee is 1% of sales made within 90 days after purchase.

Redemption fees do bear a strong resemblance to back-end loads (or contingent deferred sales commissions or CDSCs), which we hate. So why are we in favor of a fee that seems to do just about the same thing? Because redemption fees discourage short-term investing - the practice of hopping in and out of a fund to benefit from quick rises in NAV prices.

Imagine getting an FDIC-insured 6.5% return with zero risk! Too good to be true? With Callable CDs you can get mouthwatering returns without the ups and downs of stocks. Trouble is, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

CDs (certificate of deposit) are appealing to risk-averse investors. They are FDIC-insured against loss (unlike mutual funds) and readily available with just a few thousand dollars at your local bank – seemingly without sales charges or commissions.

With interest rates on the rise, CDs are becoming more attractive, particularly to those worried about stock market gyrations and low dividend yields from stocks.

Because of the safety, CDs typically don’t yield much – the best CDs yield slightly more than government bonds for similar maturities. As interest rates have climbed in recent weeks, investors can typically get around 4% - 5.5% on better CDs, depending on the term.